Delhi Commonwealth Games: A super fiasco in making (Part IV)

Failing Revenue Generation Claims

Projected financial bottomlines of the games have already been revised thrice even before the revenues are yet to trickle in. The financial management skills of the organizing committee have come under the scanner of CAG.

As per the bid documents of December 2003, the projected revenue was estimated to be Rs.840 crore and the operating expenditure was projected at Rs.635 crore resulting in savings of Rs.205 crore. In August 2007, the organizing committee increased its income by Rs.60 crore while it hiked its expenditure by Rs.132 crore, thus reducing savings to Rs.133 crores.

A Year later, surprisingly, the committee again revised its projected accounts where estimated surplus cash to zero – no profit, no loss with the total revenue reaching Rs.1780 crore and total expenditure also showing Rs.1780 crore. Suresh Kalmadi, President of the Indian Olympic Association has failed to convince auditors on the avenues of revenue generation.CAG now has stressed on the need for greater and more effective monitoring of the actual use of funds given the multiplicity of agencies involved in executing the project.

Delhi Commonwealth Games: A super fiasco in making (Part III)

Government flouted the 7 year international Norms

There was hardly any method in the way the Games were approached by the planners, says CAG. The organizers were supposed to follow the seven-year project cycle as practiced internationally — two years for planning and approvals, four years for execution, construction and development, and the last year for test events and trial runs.After the event was awarded to New Delhi in 2003, the government instead adopted a four-phase approach. In the first phase, the entire plan for the Games was to be laid out. Two years were allocated for this purpose (January 2004 to May 2006). The second phase was for creation of infrastructure, between May 2006 and May 2008. The delivery of the completed projects was to be made between May 2008 to December 2010.CAG observed that there was no evidence of the four phase approach being translated into action from 2004 to 2006 (phase one), nor during a major part of phase two. In fact, in its response to CAG observations, the organizing committee said that till the appointment of technical and HR consultants in 2006, it had little or no experience in organizing an event of this magnitude.

Lack of governance and mismanagement is not new to India and Indians. As a nation, if India cuts a sorry face in CWG in October 2010, it will dampen the global perception of India and Indians. But, it will also probably awaken the system and authorities and bring in greater accountability and responsibility into the system. If the CWG fiasco manages to achieve a shake-up of that order, even that will be a positive outcome as far as India is concerned.

Delhi Commonwealth Games: A super fiasco in making (Part II)

The sorry state of infra-structure under-preparedness for CWG Delhi 2010

Games Campuses off the schedule

The games campuses that face “high risk” of non completion include Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Aquatic Complex for the swimming event which according to the plan should have been 93% complete by June 2009. Only 40% of the work has been finished so far. Interestingly, even completion targets for the SPM aquatic complex have been reset on documents from 93% to 40% to make the dismal progress so far look good.

Training venue for athletics, swimming, weightlifting and wrestling at the games village is also lagging behind with over 40% of the work yet to be completed. Other key projects lagging behind include the Shivaji Stadium for Hockey, The Ludlow Castle hall for wrestling, The Jamia Milia Islamia university which is the venue for rugby and table tennis and Talkatora Stadium, the boxing venue. All these venues have a work shortfall up to to 50%.

The lack of concern on part of the government and organizers in meeting deadlines reflect in the way planning has been done. While the organizing committee submitted its budget for the Games in November 2005, this was approved by the Centre only in April 2007 a full one-and-a-half year later.The organization plan was finalized in August 2007, project and risk management experts appointed in March 2008 and the Games masterplan finalized in November 2008 for seeking the approval of the Commonwealth Games Federation.As per the international guidelines, all CWG projects were to be completed by May 2009 and the last year should have been kept for trial runs. Au Contraire, Delhi has started work on most of these projects around the same time leaving doubts on completion times and leaving no time absolutely for trial runs!

The all too familiar finger pointing is on as CPWD, the project executing agency, has blamed the organizing committee and its consultants for delaying the projects by constantly revising and re-revising designs for every venue. This is far from the earnest search for real answers and efforts to get things right!

Delhi: Running out of time on Commonwealth

A sequel to my earlier post : A system in Rot, http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2009/03/system-in-rot.html, this blog post takes the lack of seriousness of governance and Bureaucracy to the next level: How is it going to affect the 2010 Commonwealth games in Delhi?

China's Beijing Olympic dazzle left the world glittered in its awe and won it some great acclaim world over. In 2006, Melbourne hosted the Commonwealth Games and rasied the bar ever so much. In 2010, the Commonwealth games move into India and Delhi. Its less than 18 months here on to the games and Delhi looks not even to have started the preparedness to the Commonwealth. A parliamentary report tabled at the Rajya Sabha has slammed Delhi Government's preparedness on the Commonwealth and yet the Delhi sport minister, Manohar Singh Gill has side stepped the concern, likening the preparation for Commonwealth to a great Indian wedding, where everything comes together just on time before the opening ceremony. For the government that was elected on its progress agenda, Shiela Dixit and her men, are in adenial to face realities that they face. Worse, adhocism and procastrination in terms of infrastructure development leading to this event may dent India's image significantly in the world communities but no one seems to be bothered about it really. All that is in the air, is the election and its doesnot seem like there will be any awareness and action on this till about June 2009, which will only leave 15 months to the Opening ceremony.

The Games Village, the facilities around, the roads and transport, the security, the airports,the  water and power supply, nothing seems to be in place for this spectacle. In absence of any serious call to action, the image that India may project in front of the 71 participating nations may not be a very flattering one. According to press reports, the Commonwealth boxing championships have already been pushed back from December 2009 and the vice president of the international swimming federation has already slammed the organisers for the poor facilities.

The ministers answers, the CAG report on delays in project completion, ruefully point to the deliberate lack of seriousness in efforts to develop infrastructure. If this be the case in Delhi, which is the capital of this country, imagine what be it in far off places (India being a geographical and economically diverse country!). Corruption, schedule overruns, rampant mis-use of public funds, lack of foresight in policy decisions and ballooning funds are going to sink the ship, even before it takes to the high seas. A damning statistic over here: out of 519 infrastructure projects scheduled by the central government, 258 are running behind schedule (50%) and the cost overruns are 13.4% (from 344119 crores to 390230 crores). 

It is time to step up the gas, and probably at this time, it is worth inviting private participation of infrastructure companies to speeden things up for a change.

A system in rot

In one of my earliest blog posts in September 2008, i had debated the state of Indian roads with the Mint editor Raju Narisetti.
http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/08/of-infrsatructure-and-capital.html
http://newspaper-posts.blogspot.com/2008/09/of-infrastructure-and-capital.html

The debate on accountability for the bad state of infrastructure has been re kindled by the CAG report which was reported by TOI:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Delhi/55_of_roads_okayed_by_MCD_substandard_CAG/articleshow/4203120.cms
The report brings forth the following points

1. MCD accepts substandard road work from contractors insteda of opting for minimum quality standards. Third party checks on 20 roads built between 2003 and 2008 reported 55% of the roads below standard.
   42 roads have been damaged during the warranty period and there have been no repairs made on to them. This was while the warranty covered all costs of repairs.


2. 5 newly built roads made at a cost of Rs.3.18 crores were accpeted by the MCD where as third party checks by the CAG have found them to be substandard.


3. Of 304 RWAs (resident welfare associations) surveyed 77% have reported bad roads in their colonies and 71% have said that the roads in their colonies have not been repaired even once in the last 5 years.


4. Of the total allocation of monies for road development, MCD has routinely diverted the money to purchase of vehicles, computers, hiring of vehicles and office work constructions.


5. Contractors delay the road work routinely, and though they should be fined for it, none of they are ever penalised courtesy MCD.


6. On an average 87% of the total project contractual work amounts are duly paid up to the contractors, with out any completion of work.


7. Monies collected from other agencies for road development lies sorely under utilised.


8. MCD has been commissioning quality checks without mandatory quality checks 53% of the times.


9. A third of MCD assets such as drainage, sewage, roads and subways are in a state of neglect.
   

These are just about gaping wide craters in the system, sucking up the taxpayers money and distributing it to a few pockets in the MCD and the Government machinery. While fraudsters and scamsters are tried, penalised and punished, the MCD - Government nexus which is probably a shade worse in fraud, scmas and misuse of public money go about becoming more powerful and more irresponsible and more corrupt in their ways. One would have to give the kudos to CAG to bring such facts on the table. But one needs a more wilful, accountable and "aware" governance to fight se evils of the system.